Sounds like you did it correctly. Have you tried clearing the browser cache to make sure it wasn't holding old info?

The cache on my internet browser?

I tried registering an account using a browser that had never even visited my site before, and the custom fields didn't appear in the registration form, and I cannot see them when trying to edit the test account's profile.  Cannot search them either.

I am totally lost as to what to do.

EDIT:  I should add that the edits I made to EXISTING fields show up (like I changed gender options, for example, and changed "real name" to "nickname").  New fields appear in the admin panel but not actually on the site.

Sounds like it may wind up being a problem with the cron, or database. There is a plugin in the store to check if cron is running http://www.oxwall.org/store/item/1060 . If it is, I would then check to see if the fields are showing in the database in the php myadmin.  If the cron is working, and they are showing in the database, that's a little beyond my experience level.

That's a handy plugin.  Yes, the cron job is working.

I did find the php myadmin in my hosting account.  However, I am a complete novice with coding.  I don't have any skills in that department.  I don't really know what I am looking at. I used the search function to find the ow_base_question table.  All of the original values have a meaningful descriptor in the "name" field (such as "password" or "email" or "realname" or "sex" etc.).  The ones I created just say field_a-bunch-of-letters-and-numbers.

Okay Just went to look at mine in the my phpadmin, and it shows the same as yours for my custom fields. One last thing to try, if you haven't already, before waiting on Oxwall support is to go the the ow_includes folder, open the config.php file, go to the bottom of the page, set Dev mode to true, open your site, and refresh the page. Then set Dev mod back to false. This will refresh your site.

I couldn't find that in the list of things I was looking at, so I looked up some instructions, but I can't find my installation path, so I do not know where the ow_includes folder is.  I am using Bluehost.

Never mind.  Figured that part out.  But it has made no difference.

public_html/yoursite/oxwall/ow_includes/config.php. Not sure about bluehost. I'm on Arvixe. There's a store plugin that works well for this as well without having to go to cpanel cache cleaner extreme. http://www.oxwall.org/store/item/579 . I use this a lot myself.

I installed that and clicked "clean it up."  I also cleared my browser history.  I still don't see a change. :/

Is it always this difficult to customize Oxwall??  Or are you more or less stuck with the default settings?

No. I have really had no issues. My custom fields worked fine, and it sounds like you did the same thing. I'm sure Ross, or one of the other experts can give some input that will help.

Thanks for all your help today.  I wouldn't have have had any idea where to begin with trying out different things without your advice.  Hopefully I can figure out a solution soon.

I finally figured this out, and I was just being an inexperienced dum-dum. I didn't have the checkboxes beside the new fields checked for user roles. That's all it was! I can't believe I missed something that obvious...

Topic/problem resolved.

Great. It sounded like you had already done that. Well. You got to cruise around a little trouble shooting so some good still came from it.